Ocean’s Four
A new book on one of India’s most popular and loved bands pieces together the journey that made them Indian Ocean
Ocean, the band.
Year 1997. On a chilly December evening, in a darkened hall inside Delhi’s Max Mueller Bhawan, four young men were sweating it out and making almost 500 homebodies sing along a Syrian Christian hymn transformed into a rock anthem. Kandisa was a song in Aramaic, a language none of those present understood but with their limbs pounding and hearts chanting Kandisa alahaye, kandisa esana, the song seemed to be seeping in all the right places. This was not just a seminal indie music evening.
“It was cementing the careers of Rahul Ram, Susmit Sen, Asheem Chakravarty and Amit Kilam as Indian Ocean,” says Vineet Sharma, who was present at the gig, which followed the launch of the band’s debut album Desert Rain. Almost 17 years after he attended a gig “that was magical in every sense of the word”, Sharma, a businessman and a music aficionado, has penned Indian Ocean (Parragon Books, Rs 1,495) a coffee-table book that captures a photographic journey of the band spanning more than two decades.
“Their music has been written about at such length that it is hard to define. It’s earthy and organic but at the same time they use a lot of Western instruments. So the sound has more of a transcendental quality. There is a discovery that is happening all the time and that turns their sound into a classic sound – something which put the strong idea in my head to pen this book,” says Sharma, who has been following the band’s music and its members for years.
The inquisitive reader who enters the portals of this one will find a biographical history of the band members. But it is not necessarily the history of indie music in India, a topic that could have been explored to give more depth and detail to the tome. Instead, this one takes us into the world of four young men, whose “distinctive sound” turned them into the toast of many towns across the country, got them record deals and had everyone asking for more. Sharma has collected candid shots, college photos from various sources, backstage moments, the band’s gig posters and CD covers. Be it the four posing together under a colourful umbrella, drinking together after college or performing in a train, it makes one experience the soul behind the music. “There is no other band in India that holds the status that Indian Ocean does. Not only are they one of the oldest bands in the country, they have sustained themselves by way of quality and great tunes,” says Sharma.
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